Warming up to efficiency idea

Ryan O'Donnell's Whitney Pier home scored 33 out of 100 on an energy-efficiency scale before upgrades were made. (TIM KROCHAK)

Winter arrived with a vengeance in Sydney’s Whitney Pier neighbourhood in 2011 — or so it seemed to Ryan and Alexandra O’Donnell.

It was the couple’s first year in their new house, a century-old semi perched on a hill near the reclaimed steel mill and tar ponds site.

The O’Donnells knew their two-storey starter wasn’t properly insulated, but there had been upgrades, including new windows, before they bought it. They also started doing additional work after they moved in during the summer.

But they weren’t prepared for the cold that permeated the house that first winter, especially when the wind blew.

No matter how much they cranked up the oil furnace, the house wouldn’t warm up.

“We basically had to turn the house into an apartment,” Ryan recalls, two years later. “You couldn’t go upstairs. It was that cold.”

The O’Donnells got through until spring by turning a downstairs room into a bedroom.

But they vowed the spacious semi would be warmer before they spent another winter in it.

The couple had an energy audit done by the Atlantic Coastal Action Program-Cape Breton, a non-profit agency that provides Efficiency Nova Scotia programs.

The O’Donnells’ old house scored a dismal 33 out of 100 on the energy-efficiency scale. (A new R-2000 house would have a rating of about 80).

As a result, ACAP Cape Breton gave them a list of possible upgrades that would improve the house’s rating while earning them government rebates.

Ryan and Alexandra did most of the suggested work, including having the walls and attic insulated and installing a new furnace.

The house scored 57 on a followup test, but Ryan said what he and his wife noticed first, before they saw extra dollars in their pockets, was the difference when cold weather set in again.

Last winter, the couple no longer had to live downstairs.

“The upstairs is warmer than downstairs is now, which was the opposite before,” said the automobile salesman.

Home retrofits

The O’Donnells are among thousands of Nova Scotians who have had a major home retrofit done thanks to the energy-efficiency program.

Some 8,800 home assessments were done in 2012, according to Efficiency Nova Scotia, the provincial agency that oversees conservation programs.

That includes 3,700 initial audits and 5,100 second ones, which are required to confirm the work has been completed.

Donald Dodge, a program director with Efficiency Nova Scotia, said demand for audits, and the number of retrofits that are subsequently done, varies annually.

Dodge said there was a “huge influx” of test bookings early in 2012 because a federal rebate program worth up to $5,000 ended in June.

The total amount of government aid available was $6,500, including a matching provincial rebate of up to $1,500.

About 80 per cent of initial audits resulted in home improvements being done, compared with the normal average of about 60 per cent. “Now we’re trying to refill the hopper, in essence,” Dodge said. “That’s a little bit of a struggle right now without our federal partners.”

The province still has rebates available, including amounts of up to $3,000 for efficiency upgrades on homes that use electric heat and up to $1,500 for homes that use other fuel sources.

The agency also launched a program in the fall that makes zero-interest loans available for residential retrofits, a service that was previously only available to businesses.

The federal government has been in and out of the home retrofit program a couple of times over the past decade, Dodge said.

“Every time they go out, people naturally assume the program is finished,” the program director said.

Home assessments are one of many programs provided by the agency, now in its third full year.

Other initiatives target businesses or such groups as low-income earners, students and apartment dwellers.

Efficiency Nova Scotia took over from Conserve Nova Scotia, an agency that was mired in controversy from its inception in 2006.

Conserve Nova Scotia was headed by Heather Foley Melvin, a former chief of staff to then-premier Rodney MacDonald. The opposition cried foul over the Tory patronage appointment, which again became an issue during the 2009 election when MacDonald’s government quietly extended her contract for two years.

The New Democrats closed the agency in March 2011 and Efficiency Nova Scotia took over its programs.

The newer agency had been created in 2010 to take over conservation programs spearheaded by Nova Scotia Power.

Politics aside, Efficiency Nova Scotia said electricity customers will save a total of $100 million on their power bills as a result of programs offered in 2011.

Efficiency measures undertaken that year will help Nova Scotians conserve 124 gigawatt hours of energy. That is the same as taking 14,000 homes off the grid.

“That is money that stays in the Nova Scotia economy,” Dodge said. “It doesn’t go to pay for coal from Colombia. It stays at home. It’s really great rural economic development.”

Power tax

While customers and program providers sing the praises of energy efficiency, not everyone is convinced Nova Scotia is going about it the right way.

Peter Allen, an energy expert at Dalhousie University in Halifax, said conservation is a good thing, but he is not convinced demand-side management programs work.

“If you put in some very efficient windows in your home and reduce your electric heating bill, then you decide you can put in the electrically heated spa in the backyard,” he said.

Allen, who teaches mechanical engineering, said the fact residential electricity consumption is rising, as are Canada’s carbon emissions, is a sign that efficiency programs don’t work.

Governments could curb electricity use by introducing a consumption tax, he said. “That would drive up the prices, and then consumers would respond, in my opinion, in the right manner. Maybe they’ll opt to go around and get rid of 10 lamps.”

The Energy Department could still offer educational programs rather than have a separate bureaucracy that offers financial incentives, Allen said.

Efficiency Nova Scotia spent
$41 million in 2011, with most of its funding coming from ratepayers in the form of a surcharge on their power bill.

The energy expert admitted he doesn’t think politicians would ever go for his idea because a power tax would be unpopular, probably as much so as climbing electricity rates.

Worthy upgrades

On a wet, windy night in December, Ryan O’Donnell surveys his home and thinks about all the work he and his wife have done in two years.

The insulation and new furnace alone cost almost $9,000, $4,500 of which they got back from government rebates.

O’Donnell estimates the major upgrades have cut his oil bill by 40 per cent and says it was money well spent.

He expects to break even on the retrofit costs by the end of this winter.

“It’s only a short period of time — two winters — and we should be even. Every winter after that, you’re in the plus.”

O’Donnell also notes the work has increased the home’s value and helps revitalize the working-class neighbourhood.

“I really enjoy putting the effort into it. I feel like we’ve brought this old home back to life.”